posted on March 10, 2001 11:42:56 AM
To try to make a long story as short as possible, last year, I had an eBay id with almost 800 positive feedback. I was trying to attain powerseller status, so I was running 50-100 auctions per week. My computer crashed. I did not have access to my e-mail for about three weeks. The only thing I was able to do was to put up an about me page stating that my computer was in the shop, I did not have access to my e-mail, please request my contact info and call me. Only about 5 peope ever actually called me. Three or four e-mailed that they had seen the message, to let them know when I was back online. One disgruntled buyer took it upon herself to e-mail everyone that I had done business with in the past 30 days and tell them I was a con-artist, to please leave me negative feedback and file a fraud report with eBay immediately so they could get me "run off." Only 4 people filed fraud reports, but about 30 left negative feedback.
When I got back online, I contacted everyone, and offered to send their merchandise immediately, or refund their money. Most opted for their merchandise, a few requested a refund, two told me to shove it where the sun didn't shine, they did not want anything from me, and three or four never responded. The woman who started all of the mess, I sent her item certified mail, and she signed for it. Most people never bothered to follow up with their negative feedback, and say that they had gotten their item/refund, and only two of the ones who filed fraud complaints noted on the fraud complaint that the situation had been resolved.
I tried to do the honest thing, and carry on with the same user id. However, if anyone placed a bid on any of my items, the woman who started all the problems e-mailed them and said that I had stolen her money and never sent her item, even long after she had received her item, so bidders were retracting right and left. I contacted eBay about it, but couldn't get anywhere, so I started another user id. I have not used the old id in 6 months.
I have done business on the new user id for six months, and have 170+ positive feedback, with one retalitory negative from someone who has 6 negs for non-payment.
Today, I received an e-mail from eBay that both the old and new id's had been suspended due to seller non-performance. Safe Harbor says that I have to have "a significant number" of the people who filed fraud complaints or left negative feedback to contact them and let them know that the situation was resolved before they will reinstate either of my accounts.
Is anyone else disturbed about the fact that eBay is just now acting on fraud reports filed six months ago?
What is "a significant number"? How am I suppoed to get these people to contact eBay now? I can't access anyone's e-mail address anymore, and I can't get into the fraud reporting system because I am suspended. I just last week threw out a whole stack of old mail receipts, because I figured that I wouldn't need them by this date and time. i could probably prove myself that a number of the items were sent, or show where the refunds were sent, but if my word and my feedback record except for the time period in question isn't good enough, what can I do?
I have sent three e-mails to eBay, but the only response I have received is the one stating that I had to have the bidders contact them. I not only still run a large number of auctions, I also do a LOT of buying on eBay, of items to sell in my shop. eBay comprises the majority of my income, either from direct sales of items on eBay, or from reselling items I have bought on eBay. Is there any way to get in touch with anyone who could see reason at eBay, or should I do the dishonest thing, and just get a new id?
posted on March 10, 2001 12:07:32 PM
eBay's "unconfirmed" corporate location and phone numbers are:
eBay, Inc.
2145 Hamilton Ave. #350
San Jose, Ca.95125
1-800-322-9266
1-888-749-3229
1-408-558-7400
If you know the Person's Extension press 1
Dial by Name Directory press 0
Customer Service press 2
Operator press 3
Might I also suggest you get a web enabled email account (like .yahoo or .msn) that you can use as an alternative should you experience another system crash.
posted on March 10, 2001 12:08:24 PM
To BusterBlue
And I thought it only happened to me as this computer really went wacko and I had sent out the notifications, interstingly, there was a Canadian lady, a guy in Australia, anothr fellow in Brazil and finally the "gentleman in England". Well unbeknownst to me, they never got the notification and I in the meantime had 2 deaths in the family so was not watching too closely and should have rewritten them all. Then suddenly one day bingo I have a negative from the England one and try as I might, they will not remove it. The other folks I got ahold of immediately and they were so very understanding. But I truly think this ability to give negative feedback so readily anymore is awful, before a transaction was even done, plus he wanted me to ship 3 beanie to England for 4.00 and I told eBay I would just ship them free anything to quit this madness. It is very scarey to me and I didn't retaliate but posted a neutral that said "faulty emil, 2 funerals and now a negative, too sad, and he really got upset over that one. So I jsut give up. It's there to stay as the other one.
So much for dreams of a "flawless record" Thanks for letting me post
posted on March 10, 2001 12:23:06 PM
this is one more reason why everyone needs to have a plan B IF their computer breaks down. Many people have access at their local libraries or high schools or community colleges. Check them out NOW before your computer breaks again and know what your procedure will be. If you have no access whatsover to a computer if yours breaks down, I honestly think you should stay away from selling on Ebay. I am not saying that to be rude, just my opinion. It's just too negative a thing to do to buyers because they don't necessarily come back after a bad experience. you know that customers are not going to read your About Me page when they think you have ripped them off. Make a plan B and be prepared to implement it!
posted on March 10, 2001 12:23:27 PM
Hi BusterBlue:
I'm sorry to hear about your misfortune.
The easiest and most expedient thing to do is to set up another account with a different name, address and credit card number.
If the three identifiers are different,eBay won't do anything to you, even if you put up hundreds of ads a week and they are the same as the ones you ran before.
Other banished sellers do this regularly and eBay does nothing to stop it. Actually, I think eBay encourages it, given the large number that do it and the fees they pay eBay.
posted on March 10, 2001 12:32:01 PM
This is why I use a Yahoo email address for my ebay business. It has saved my bacon several times. When my computer is on the blink or my ISP is down (again, and again), I just hope over to the library and send emails letting everyone know what's up. I did business for 3 days at my local library a couple of months ago. Everything went as smooth as silk.
Edited to add:
Another plus with a web-based email address is that you can change your ebaY User ID or your ISP and your email address isn't affected. There really are no minuses that I can see because no one will see your email address until the auction closes so you won't lose any bids.
[ edited by dubyasdaman on Mar 10, 2001 12:34 PM ]
posted on March 10, 2001 12:41:55 PM
Hindsight is 20/20. I have a contigency plan now as to what I can do in case of another crash, including a web based e-mail and whose somputer I can use. Just a side note, our public library's computer system was crashed by the I Love You Virus, so they no longer allow anyone to send or receive e-mail messages from the public computers, and have blocked access to the public e-mail sites like Hotmail.
I guess there's not much else to do but start over. I just hate that 1000 positive feedbacks are wasted.
posted on March 10, 2001 12:57:58 PM
>>if my word and my feedback record except for the time period in question isn't good enough, what can I do?<<
First of all, if you create a bogus account, it is only a matter of time before your nemesis discovers you and turns you in to eBay. Then you will be permanently suspended. I don't recommend that route.
Follow eBay's instructions. Make a good faith effort to rectify the problem. Send out the items by certified mail and save the receipts. Same goes for refunds. Ask your customers who are satisfied to email eBay, or forward their emails.
In retrospect, it was probably a mistake to keep the money and not deliver the items, regardless of your computer problems. As a buyer, I would expect that if you can't ship the items, you would refund my money. I agree that sellers should have a back-up plan.
eBay has let you know what you must do. It's a lot of work, but just do it. Then kill your old account with all the negs and start over. Good luck.
Even if your nemesis turns you in, eBay won't do anything about it.
According to eBay's TOS, the newbie is a different member, bound on the day they registered to follow their rules.
As long as the three elements are changed, and you can write eBay to verify, there won't be "enough evidence" to show that the new member has violated any eBay rules.
Its an eBay loophole that crooks use all the time, so why shouldn't honest people be able to use it too?
1) I did not keep anyone's money without sending their item, except for the two people who told me that they did not want their item or their refund.
2) I did send the items certified mail/delivery confirmation SIX MONTHS AGO!
3) eBay has waited so long to take any action on this matter, that I no longer have most of my records. I seriously doubt that any of the buyers who received their merchandise 6 months ago, after an extended wait, will be willing to jump to my defense. eBay has created a situation that will be almost impossible to appeal, whether intentionally or unintentionally.
posted on March 10, 2001 02:55:43 PM
I guess what I don't understand is that even if your computer was down, why couldn't the items be sent out when payment was received? Now I understand that some come with no information and those would be hard to figure out without being on your computer. But I would think that most items should have been able to be sent out at the time payment was received. Most payments I get come with item number and brief description so that I can figure out what item needs to be shipped to that person. THen again, I am a small seller so maybe it's just easy for me for that reason.
posted on March 10, 2001 03:50:29 PM
busterblues
Either buy or build a backup system. Doesn't need to be anything top quality. An old P166 or P200 would probably just work dandy. Doesn't need a sound card or a huge hard drive. That is what I did until I got a network installed in the house. Now I have two computers on line and usually parts around here to build one or two more at any time. If you are going for PowerSeller status you need a backup plan NOW. Letting your buyers go for 3 weeks is unexcusable. Before I had my backup computer and the network, whenever a problem developed, I went over to a friend's house and emailed high bidders using my backup hotmail account. You need it all covered...the email and the hardware. I even have my hotmail address posted in my ads with my "real" address.
Hope this helps and good luck.
posted on March 10, 2001 03:51:16 PM
Advicegiver ~ I would have to agree with you. Most people do send some kind of information with their payment, some better than others.
And if access to a computer was available to complete an 'about me' page, I think I would have pulled all the customers information instead of waiting for them to pull mine.
posted on March 10, 2001 04:20:13 PM
BB, I'm not accusing you. If I understood your post correctly, you waited three weeks to communicate with your customers and send out their items. For the sake of anyone else who has a computer breakdown, I would recommend that if a seller is unable to deliver the goods, it would be better to return the payments.
ecom, I don't know where you get that information, but it is obviously incorrect, because BB's second account was suspended. eBay's rules do NOT allow suspended users to create secondary accounts. Unfortunately, the advice to create a secondary account is exactly how this user dug him/herself into a hole. And now, after six months, there is no longer any documentation that items were delivered. This should have been taken care of correctly at the time of the incidents, without trying to circumvent eBay's rules.
I suspect that eBay will resist reinstating a user who has already been caught using a bogus suspended ID. That will certainly make the situation worse, not better.
Find the four users who file fraud complaints, send them a refund (even another refund if you have sent one already) by certified mail, and then go back to eBay. At least that will be a show of good faith, and allow you to open a dialog with eBay again.
As for his second account,one of the three elements must have been the same as the newer account. So they used that as justification to link and cancel both accounts.
As for where the info comes from . . . eBay of course.
They may huff and puff, but higher-ups say they can't blow your house down!
Please feel free to verify it directly with them. It's a loophole you can drive a truck through.
Its sort of like someone who uses two different i.d.'s to publicly endorse a website. Is it wrong?
[ edited by ecom on Mar 10, 2001 05:49 PM ]
posted on March 10, 2001 05:30:25 PM
If your computer crashed you could have gotten another one in a matter of days. Even if you live in the boonies, Gateway, Dell and many others will send you a computer UPS 2 day air.
It is YOUR resposibility to serivce your customers, no matter what, no excuses!
Down 3 weeks to get a computer up isn't believable at all.
If you didn't have the money, or didn't want to get a new computer that quickly then you deserve the negtives, and deserve to be kicked off.
I had crashed hard drives, power failures, serious illnesses, several times during my Ebay selling. But my customers never knew. Serivcing your customers chould be a top priority, at any expense. Don't make excuses.
posted on March 10, 2001 05:32:22 PM
Oh, and 1 more thing.
Why not just send back all those payments. Given how angry these people were I suspect you managed to cash those checks & money orders even thorugh your computer was down.
I only cashed checks or money orders that came with info about the item that I was able to send the item out. I held any payment that had only an item number that I could not look up, or no info at all. Unfortunately, several people jumped to the conclusion that I had cashed their checks even thoguh I had not. They did not bother to check with their bank. I did not cash those checks until I was back up and running and confirmed with the buyers that they still wanted their items. I did not hold the items until the checks cleared, and as a result, I ended up with one bad check I was never able to collect on.
I just don't have the money to run out and buy another computer at the drop of a hat. If I had known that my computer was going to be in the shop for that long, I probably would have considered it, but it was only supposed to have been a week. However, those things are irrelevant now.
To go back to the original point of the post, which seems to have gotten lost, I did send out the items or refunds at the time. The four people who filed the fraud reports all received their items, either certified mail or with delivery confirmation. However, it has now been SIX MONTHS and eBay has just now chosen to act. The old id was only suspended TODAY, and the new one was suspended at the same time, even though there had been no questionable activity on it. If they had contacted me within 60 to 90 days after the auctions closed, I could have proven that items had been mailed and refunds had been given. Now, however, I had thought everything was settled, and I have trashed a lot of those postal receipts. I can still get cancelled checks for the refunds I sent, or show where the money was refunded through Paypal, but most people chose to get their item rather than a refund. eBay is not providing me with any info about the fraud cases, all of the transactions have fallen off the system, and you cannot access anyone's e-mail from the feedback page any more. They have basically given me a situation that is impossible to appeal.
posted on March 10, 2001 06:51:49 PM
Busterblues, Sorry to hear about your situation. But there are a couple things in your original post that just aren't jiving and I'd like to see if you can clear them up.
You stated:
"My computer crashed. I did not have access to my e-mail for about three weeks. The only thing I was able to do was to put up an about me page stating that my computer was in the shop, I did not have access to my e-mail,..."
How were you able to put up an about me page?
Did you use a friends computer or one at a public facility, without email privleges?
You then state:
"Only about 5 peope ever actually called me. Three or four e-mailed that they had seen the message,..."
How did you get those 3 or 4 emails if you had no email access?
And finally, as already mentioned by others:
"When I got back online, I contacted everyone, and offered to send thei merchandise immediately, or refund their money."
With the implication that you had recieved their money in the mean time, why didn't you send them their items? I find that maybe 1 customer in 30 or 40 does remmunerate with enough info to forward their item. And in those few cases, its usually an easy matter to match those sales with the auction info on my sellers list (you seem to at least have had access to a computer to create an about me page and you don't need email or access to your mail files to see your seller list.
posted on March 10, 2001 07:02:18 PM
As for the About Me page, I drove 125 miles each way to use someone's computer to do that. Obviously I wasn't able to make the trip on a regular basis. I did not know at the time that you could access the internet at a public library. I had not been there since I was in school.
I did send out the items that came with enough info for me to identify the item. However, a lot just had an item number, which I did not have internet access to look up, or "brand x shirt" when I had sold a dozen or so brand x shirts, in various colors and sizes.
I received the e-mails that you asked about when I got my computer back up and running. Those people were patient and understanding.
posted on March 10, 2001 07:04:53 PMI held any payment that had only an item number that I could not look up, or no info at all. Unfortunately, several people jumped to the conclusion that I had cashed their checks even thoguh I had not. They did not bother to check with their bank. I did not cash those checks until I was back up and running and confirmed with the buyers that they still wanted their items. I did not hold the items until the checks cleared, and as a result, I ended up with one bad check I was never able to collect on.
I guess I don't understand one thing.... if you had their checks, why didn't you call the phone numbers that were on their checks to find out what item they purchased and sent them the items that way? No phone number listed on the checks? What about their normal mailing address? Even though it would have been the "long" route to do, you could have sent them snail mail letter asking.
Unfortunately, I think the problem you're having today is stemming from bad record keeping. You should have, in your record, what you sold, for how much, who bought it and how to contact them (along with a bunch of other things that should go along with record keeping). You should keep hard copies of everything for ....... well let's put it this way... the IRS can go back 7 (?) years... then that's how long you should keep it. If you were attempting to be a powerseller, then you need to act like a business.
As far as what you can do now? Well, honestly, if you can't prove that you settled these past accounts, you'll have to either resettle them, or accept the consequences.
eBay is not providing me with any info about the fraud cases, all of the transactions have fallen off the system, and you cannot access anyone's e-mail from the feedback page any more. They have basically given me a situation that is impossible to appeal.
Just for good measure, I'm going to repeat this: It is not ebay's job to keep records for you. It is your job to keep accurate merchandise records and customer records of all transactions.
posted on March 10, 2001 09:10:03 PM1) I did not keep anyone's money without sending their item, except for the two people who told me that they did not want their item or their refund.
You hit the nail right on the head.
All the payments I ever received so far had at least one of the following:
1-a return address on the enveloppe
2-an address on the check/mo
3-a ship to address on a note/w payment
When one's computer is in the shop, that only excludes one form of communication.
Regular mail still works. The seller should have communicated with his buyers by regular mail. Thousands of companies do it every day. It works. Computer problems is no excuse for failing to communicate with a buyer if you have his address in hand.
posted on March 10, 2001 10:04:44 PM
I'm sorry but the fact is that irregardless of what a seller does or doesn't do, a pissed off buyer can say anything they want, and cause trouble for an eternity if they choose to. What I find a bit interesting in this thread is that most of you are trying to dissect the actions of the seller........as if to imply that if the seller did everything perfectly or "by the book" that none of this would have happenned. The reality is that any of us can be suspended from any auction site for any reason at any time. Bring a sandwich and go by the ebay offices, as I have, and look at some of the bozos that work there. It will not inspire confidence. Engage in any correspondence with "Safe Harbor" arbitrators and you'll soon realize that they have absolutely no interest in hearing any real evidence. Everyone I know who sells "regularly" on ebay has multiple user names.......and I don't mean 2 or 3. That's why it's pretty comical when ebay claims to have 22 million users. Yeah right! Sounds good on press releases though. It's up to you guys but if you bookmark your competitors pages, you'll see the number of sellers who get suspended on ebay. Last week I was looking at one whose feedback was in the mid 3000's who is suspended. I can guarantee you he's not sitting in a corner, waiting for a reprieve.
posted on March 10, 2001 10:44:49 PM
As much as I would like to feel sorry for ya dude,unless you live in a cave, there are so many places one can access email or use a computer (without driving 125 miles each way....)public libraries, local schools, colleges, KINKOS (and those are just about everywhere, aren't they?), cybercafes...jeez...
posted on March 10, 2001 11:27:54 PM
You could have gone to Kinkos. I don't know where you live but some coffee houses have computers also. Get yourself a MSN email address just for emergencies then you can access your email from your ISP when you go to the library. I have kept my webtv so I can bring that out if I had to. I hate to deal with irate people. I can hook that to my ISP and then webtv will charge me $10.00 a month to use it. I also have a daughter with webtv and her email address is in my about ME page so I guess I am covered. Take Care
posted on March 11, 2001 12:11:39 AM
Another alternative: in larger cities you can actually rent a computer by a weekly/monthly plan. My computer went down one day and the next morning I had another sitting on my desk and business went on as usual. I think it ran for $130 for the computer alone for the week. Well worth it I see with a problem like this. Sympathies go out to you!
posted on March 11, 2001 12:35:10 AM
Wow, what amazes me the most is that you had to drive 125 miles to your nearest reasonable point of connection to the internet! Where do you live dude??? Siberia?! I got to thinking, "What if my computer crashed? Where would I go for access?" While there are public libraries, kinkos, etc. as mentioned in previous posts, I can think of literally hundreds of options...they are called friends, co-workers, neighbors, relatives, etc. Nearly everyone I know has an email address and internet access.
If your nearest option lives 125 miles away, it's time to get off of ebay and "reach out and touch someone" in your own neighborhood!!! Maybe the suspended time off will give you a chance to connect...not on your computer, but with actual people!
Turn this negative into a positive, that's my feedback!!! Geeze...I sound like Dr. Laura!
